Works in progress

My goal of doing handmade toys for the girls for Christmas is coming along nicely. Mostly I am obtaining their presents through swaps and Etsy trades. Of course, this means I've been stupidly busy sewing stuff to send out! Not to mention working on a few other things, like L's long awaited Mei Tai.

As it gets closer to Christmas I'll take some pictures of the amazing stuff I've swapped and traded to get for the girls.

At any rate, for the swap I'm involved in one of the things I'm offering is the above bag (unfinished in the photo!) Very pretty, if I do say so myself, although in that particular photo the purple isn't quite as purple as it is in real life.

Shot of the interior (here the purple looks TOO purple! I need to retake these photos with better light. I feel like my life has become a quest for better light lately). Cell phone pocket, key loop, interior pocket that is divided into a large pocket and a pen pocket.

No strap yet, because I have a weird mental thing where I hate sewing straps and always tend to leave them as long as possible.

So that's swap bag #1 - I'll have better photos once it's completely finished. If no one takes it in the swap it'll go in the Etsy store, if I don't keep it for myself! I'm kind of in love with it.

The second swap bag isn't going so well, the proportions are all wrong and I need to take it apart and make some adjustments. Also the denim I use for the body is SUPER heavyweight stuff and it's a royal pain in the ass to sew. I'm going to take the strap attachments off and remake them in a lighterweight fabric, because as they are currently they are impossible to sew through, and that'll only get worse when I add the lining and do the final topstitching.

It is going to be a very pretty bag - it has red dupioni silk and black and silver brocade on the flap. Very fancy. The interior will be red to coordinate with the flap stripes. I just need to figure out where I went wrong with the proportions! I think I might have used some older pattern pieces I put together before I adjusted the measurements.